Read Online Out of It by Selma Dabbagh - Free Book Online Page B

about the scholarship, to squeeze her very tight and to tell her that absolutely everything was going to be all right, not just because of the scholarship but for other reasons as well. He was sure of it.
    The individual coils of smoke that had curled like strips of chiffon over the men’s heads now spread out into a beige cloud absorbing them all. One of the fighters had got hold of the remote and was flicking through the satellite channels. Flick. To a Lebanese dance competition. Flick. To a Gulf Arab in a white dishdasha singing in a meadow to a woman in black lace with heavily outlined lips. Flick. To the picture of the scene of the suicide attack by the Hajjar girl, of a ripped-up park bench, of an overturned pushchair. Flick. Lebanese dancers again. Flick. Back to the pushchair. The fighter had turned up the volume so that Rashid could no longer eavesdrop on their conversation. He was not able to catch the end of a long-winded joke told by the one with the Stalin moustache, except for the word for arse, teez, upon which the joke centred, and then the name Hajjar, spoken in seriousness by a fighter with a husky voice whose hand would throw itself out into a bulb in the centre of the table before it opened up in explanation. That Hajjar girl. What she’s done.
    Khalil entered the café looking like he had walked through the wrong door. He was hot and frowning, but coming in next to the metal and grime of the fighters he looked out of place, too clean-shaven, too slight. Seeing him enter Sindibad’s, Rashid saw for the first time quite how silly Khalil’s ponytail was and understood why Khalil had once been described as pretty.
    ‘What’s going on here? What’s with the flowers?’ Khalil asked, avoiding commenting on the more obvious anomaly of Iman being in there. The owner had arranged the carnations in jugs and placed two of them on the fighters’ table and one on Rashid’s and Seif El Din’s. Rashid started to answer but as soon as Khalil sat down Iman started to talk.
    ‘Your friend Raed got killed in the bombing of the hospital last night.’
    ‘Raed Abu Warde? The communist?’ Khalil and Rashid asked at the same time.
    ‘Yes. Dead. And his cousin Taghreed who was in my class. You remember her, Rashid? You called her Tagweed because she couldn’t pronounce her “r”s. The one who drew those pictures of tanks and cows? Cows eating tanks, that sort of thing. Remember?’
    Rashid did remember a girl, a springy little thing presenting Iman with pictures, ‘And this one, Miss. Is this one better than the other one? Shall I do another one, Miss?’
    ‘Raed Abu Warde. He was seriously impressive. I always thought that one day he might . . .’ Khalil’s head fell, almost involuntarily, until his hand caught his forehead. The gesture held the café, held everyone in the room, tore them away from the TV and froze them, froze them all because by doing so he was breaking an unwritten rule, the one against spreading despair. ‘That’s such a terrible loss. I’m sorry about his cousin, Iman. Are you OK?’ Khalil tried to get Iman to look up so that he could see for himself, but she refused to do so.
    ‘I’m OK. What’s new? A student of mine got killed. It’s hardly the first time is it? It’s not going to be the last. Does it matter any more?’
    ‘Of course it matters. It has to. Otherwise they’ve won.’ Khalil spoke with more urgency now. ‘Listen, the only way to get through this is to retain humanity and compassion, not to abandon it. You know that, don’t you?’
    Iman glanced up for a moment. Khalil raised his hand as though there was so much more to be said in a far grander way, but nothing else accompanied the gesture. Rashid waved the fly away from Iman’s face.
    ‘I don’t mean to lecture. But the family? He’s the oldest son, isn’t he? Are they OK?’ Khalil’s hands were unable to reach out to Iman in the café.
    ‘No. They’re not OK. I don’t know about the father, as